The Daily Tribune <<< Without Fear or Favor >>>

»HEADLINES

»NATION

ERMITA CITES NEED TO UPGRADE JAIL STANDARDS

Palace seeks delay in anti-torture pact

10/05/2008

Like its aversion to signing the Rome Statute seeking to create an International Criminal Court, the government is balking at implementing the United Nations (UN)-sponsored Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT) and wanted its enforcement delayed for at most five years once it is ratified.

The key international accord would commit the country to stopping torture as a practice among state law enforcers.

The OPCAT provides for a system of regular visits of UN representatives to places of detention which the UN believes is one of the most effective means to prevent torture and improve conditions of detention.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita during a forum last Sept. 23 said the government was moving for a “deferment for three to five more years, from the date of ratification, our country’s implementation of its obligations as a state-party to the OPCAT.”

President Arroyo signed the OPCAT last April 22 upon her arrival from Geneva after attending the Universal Periodic Review on human rights, but until now the agreement has yet to be ratified by the

Senate.

Ermita said the Arroyo administration will seek a formal declaration to be included in the Instrument of Ratification for the OPCAT for the deferment of its implementation.

“By doing so, we will have sufficient time to upgrade all prisons, detention and custodial facilities to international or UN standards, and spare ourselves from future inconsistencies,” he said.

European countries has been pressuring the government to accede to the international agreements to improve the country’s dismal record on protecting human rights.

The Delegation of the European Commission (EC) had urged the government to ratify the Rome Statute to help bring “to justice perpetrators of serious international crimes.”

Chief Justice Reynato Puno blamed the delay in signing the Rome Statute to foot dragging in Malacañang.

EU head delegate, Ambassador Alistair MacDonald has said the ratification process in the Philippines is “very protracted.”

MacDonald said that “some other countries may seem more inclined to believe that only national legal systems can legitimately demand accountability,” and mentioned the Philippines as one country in which the ratification process is rooted in that belief.

Ermita said the delay in the implementation of OPCAT will be used to enact appropriate legislation to define the country’s treaty obligations and to put up “sufficient fund appropriations for such a purpose that will indeed ensure the upgrading of facilities and the enhancement of manpower resources.”

“In the end, we expect a clear road map for the ratification and the eventual effective implementation of the OPCAT. This road map must consider a time-table for consultations and sufficient period for an education and information campaign that will allow ownership and training of as many stakeholders as possible,” Ermita added.

“The same road map must also be cognizant of our desire to preserve and promote our integrity and sovereignty as a nation, even under scrutiny, and of our capacity to resolve our internal problems on our own,” he said.

He said that while the Philippines join its colleagues in the community of nations in denouncing torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, there is wisdom in moving with caution “as has been the Philippine government’s previous actions in relation to its adherence to international treaties.”

He noted that to date, 61 countries, including the Philippines, have signed the OPCAT, but only 35 have actually ratified or acceded to it.

He cited the United Kingdom, which delayed its ratification to make way for a review of all its existing domestic monitoring mechanisms.

“Isn’t it prudent and reasonable for us to likewise take stock of ourselves and check if we have the structures and means to comply with the OPCAT?,” he said.

Ermita argued that with or without the OPCAT, laws, rules and regulations that keep in check acts of torture, as well as cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment are being enforced by the Philippine government.

He said the government noted the need for a thorough discussion of the various aspects of the OPCAT, especially on the issues of detention monitoring visits and the roles of institutions and other stakeholders constituting the domestic visiting mechanisms.

“I say we rather err on the side of prudence and thoroughness if only to assert our capability to deliver on the longer-term,” Ermita added.

He cited three main realities in the country’s penal system that needed to be addressed prior to the OPCAT implementation: Philippine jails are overcrowded, and the excess humanity is primarily traced to the proverbial wheels of justice that grind ever so slow; local jails are regularly confronted with outbreaks of diseases; and that jails in the country “may be less hellish” if logistics were enough to create a jail environment that allows the rehabilitation and the eventual reintegration of an inmate.

He said that even as the government feels a certain sense of urgency at this time, it should not be pressured into an early yet flawed compliance.

MacDonald in expressing his views over the delay in the government’s signing of the Rome statute expressed that the “very protracted ratification process in the Philippines” is rooted in the belief that its national legal system could very well solve the issue of international criminality, which “can also give rise to potential fears and misunderstandings.”

The Supreme Court during a recent Summit on Extra-Legal Killings has recommended that the Philippine government ratify the Statute.

The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) also had been urging the government to ratify the OPCAT and have it immediately implemented.

CHR chairwoman Laila de Lima said the CHR has been pushing for the ratification of OPCAT because it would be very significant in providing national preventive mechanisms.

She said the agreement will be a very good deterrent of torture. “Unannounced visitations will make perpetrators think twice before committing torture”, she said.

The CHR had already wrote Malacañang that except for the international mechanism, the national mechanism is already in harmony with the OPCAT. “Therefore, there is no reason for the government not to ratify it,” the CHR wrote Malacañang.

Riza Recio